Subject Librarian
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
Keeping up with the journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for a national or regional cinema? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.
Introduction to Czech cinema
Czech cinema
The Lumière films were screened in Prague within a few months of their initial showing in Paris in 1895. In 1898, Czech filmmaker Jan Krizenecky produced a handful of short actualities starring comic actor Josef Svab-Malostransky. The first purpose-built cinemas opened in Prague from 1907, and regular film production began from 1910, with an adaptation of the Bedřich Smetana opera Prodana nevesta/The Bartered Bride (Max Urban, 1913). Literary adaptations were also very popular with Czech audiences. The subsequent development of cinema in the Czech Republic is tied to, and congruent with, that of Czechoslovakia (see Slovakia, film in), a nation formed in 1918 of which the Czech Republic formed a part until 1993. In spite of competition from neighbouring Germany, some 40 features had been produced by the late 1930s, with the Barrandov studios in Prague among the most advanced in Europe. Output was largely commercial, with Martin Fric a prolific director, but this was leavened by the more artistic work of Gustav Machatý, whose Erotikon (1929) and its sequel of sorts, Extase/Ecstasy (1933), attracted critical acclaim and an international audience. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Czech Republic, film in the. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 16 Aug. 2022
Czech New Wave
A film movement associated with a group of filmmakers active during the political and cultural ‘thaw’ that took place across the Eastern bloc during the 1960s, and which manifested itself in Czechoslovakia in a period of political and cultural liberalization that culminated in the Prague Spring of 1968. Internationally successful, and considered the most significant film movement of postwar Central and Eastern European cinema, the Czech New Wave turned its back on the Socialist Realism favoured in the centralized film industry of the country’s Soviet-dominated years.
The middle years of the decade saw the appearance of some sixty films marked by absurdism and black humour, and characteristically featuring young non-professional actors performing unscripted dialogue. Štefan Uher’s Slnko v sieti/Sun in the Net (1962) and Milos Forman’s feature debut Černý Petr/Black Peter (1963) are widely regarded as inaugurating this new wave. They were followed by Forman’s Lásky jedné plavovlásky/A Blonde in Love (1965) and Horí má panenko/The Fireman’s Ball (1967), both nominated for Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category; and Jiří Menzel’s Oscar-winning Ostre sledované vlaky/Closely Observed Trains (1966). Other key films of the Czech New Wave include Vera Chytilova’s freewheeling feminist farce Sedmikrásky/Daisies (1966); Obchod na korze/The Shop on Main Street (Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, 1965), winner of the 1966 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film; Intimní osvetlení/Intimate Lighting (Ivan Passer, 1965); and Valerie a týden divů/Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Jaromil Jireš, 1970). Following the repression of the Prague Spring, many of the filmmakers fled into exile, with Milos Forman and Ivan Passer moving to the US to embark on successful careers in Hollywood. Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’s documentary CzechMate: In Search of Jiři Menzel (India, 2018) includes interviews with Forman, Passer, and Chytilova as well as with Menzel himself. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Czech New Wave. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 9 Oct. 2024
Searching the online catalog
You can use the subject heading below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number range is also included.
- motion pictures czech republicCall number range PN 1993.5 .C94 on Baker Level 4. Please note: this is not the only call number range, but it has the most items.
- motion pictures czechoslovakiaCall number range PN 1993.5 .C9 on Baker Level 4.
Introductory reading(s)
- Closely watched films: the Czechoslovak experience byCall Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C9 L48ISBN: 9780873320368This book collected interviews with leading Czechslovak filmmakers conducted mostly between 1967 and 1969. This was a period of immense upheaval beginning with the attack of the Czechoslovak establishment on the Union of Writers in 1967, continuing through the liberalisation of the Prague Spring in January 1968 and ended with the Soviet invasion in August and subsequent ‘Normalization’ process in April 1969. It records the testimony of several generations of filmmakers and their attempts to answer the questions about the purpose and meaning of film before and during this period.
Czech and Slovak cinema: theme and tradition by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780748620814This book is the first study in English to examine some of the key themes and traditions of Czech and Slovak cinema, linking inter-war and post-war cinemas together with developments in the post-Communist period. It examines links between theme, genre, and visual style, and looks at the ways in which a range of styles and traditions has extended across different historical periods and political regimes. Czech and Slovak Cinema provides a unique study of areas of Central European film history that have not previously been examined in English.
Czech new wave filmmakers in interviews by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C89 B83 2004ISBN: 9780786417209In Czechoslovakia, in the 1960s, artists began to realize that the aesthetics of social realism contrasted with the realities of daily life; a movement of film arose in response to the politics and history of the nation. This work collects candid interviews with the creators of the Czech New Wave film movement (1960-2000). Their work put Czech film on the map of world cinema, generating two Oscars for Best Foreign Film, but the official critique marked them as decadent, pessimistic, and reactionary. ...- The Czechoslovak new wave byCall Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C9 H2 1985ISBN: 9780520048591The Czechoslovak New Wave was originally published in 1985 and was quickly established as the world's leading authoritative English-language text. A study of the most significant movement in post-war Central and East European cinemas, it examines the origins of a movement against the political and cultural developments of the 1960s leading to the Prague Spring of 1968.
Selected book title(s)
- All the bright young men and women: a personal history of the Czech cinema byCall Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C9 S513ISBN: 9780887780561
Avant-garde to new wave: Czechoslovak cinema, surrealism and the sixties by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C9 O84 2011ISBN: 9780857451262The cultural liberalization of communist Czechoslovakia in the 1960s produced many artistic accomplishments, not least the celebrated films of the Czech New Wave. This movement saw filmmakers use their new freedom to engage with traditions of the avant-garde, especially Surrealism. This book explores the avant-garde's influence over the New Wave and considers the political implications of that influence. ...
The Bohemian body: gender and sexuality in modern Czech culture by Call Number: Baker-Berry PG 5006.3 .G46 T48 2007ISBN: 9780299222802The Bohemian Body examines the modernist forces within nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe that helped shape both Czech nationalism and artistic interaction among ethnic and social groups--Czechs and Germans, men and women, gays and straights. By re-examining the work of key Czech male and female writers and poets from the National Revival to the Velvet Revolution, Alfred Thomas exposes the tendency of Czech literary criticism to separate the political and the personal in modern Czech culture. ...- Cinema all the time: an anthology of Czech film theory and criticism, 1908-1939 byCall Number: Baker-Berry PG 13 .M46 v.54ISBN: 9780930042998This anthology assembles some of the earliest Czech texts on film published in the period between 1908 and 1939, i.e., between the rise of art cinema and the outbreak of World War II, writings that were instrumental in shaping the various ways film was seen and understood in this formative period. ...
Prague in danger: the years of German occupation, 1939-45: memories and history, terror and resistance, theater and jazz, film and poetry, politics and war by Call Number: Baker-Berry DB 2629 .D46 2008ISBN: 9780374281267During the years 1939-1945, Peter Demetz was living in Prague - as a 'first-degree half-Jew' according to the Nazis - and he joins an objective chronicle of the city under Nazi occupation to his personal memories of that tormented, tragic period.
Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)
Articles and other writings about Czech films can be found in different publications. Our collection does not include any journals which look exclusively at Czech films. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about Czech or Slovak national cinemas.
Screen studies collection by Call Number: Electronic resourceA comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Selected movie title(s)
Find more Czech films in the online catalog.
Kráska v nesnázích = Beauty in trouble by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #10571A married woman meets a wealthy, educated man, who causes her to question her path in life.
Ovoce stromů rajských jíme = Fruit of paradise by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #4794ISBN: 9781565804654In this modern, highly stylized adaptation of the Adam and Eve story, a couple vacationing at a spa is offered the forbidden fruit of Eden. The husband, Robert, refuses to eat the apple, but wife Eva bites into the luscious fruit.
Protektor by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #19664ISBN: 9781461837435This fateful love story is set in Prague during the late 1930s and subsequent Nazi occupation. It focuses on radio journalist Emil, who is deeply in love with his glamorous Jewish movie star wife Hana. When the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is established, Hana's career is cut short and Emil's radio station put under German control. Emil chooses to collaborate with the occupiers in order to survive and protect his wife. Ironically, this choice threatens to destroy the very thing he's trying to protect: Hana.
Spalovač mrtvol = The cremator by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #8392ISBN: 9780788608018Karl Kopfrkingl works at a stately crematorium in Prague. Obsessed with his duties, he believes he is liberating the souls of the departed. With Nazi forces gathering at the Czech border, Karl descends into a mania that allows him to wholly enact his disturbed beliefs.
The valley of the bees = Udoli včel by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #5733ISBN: 9781565805095A young son of a lord is sent to study with a Brotherhood and is befriended by a fellow member, who in turn leads him on his path to God. When he returns, he finds his father dead, his land barren, and his people with no hope.
Internet resource(s)
- Czech Centre in LondonTheir aim is to actively promote the Czech Republic in the United Kingdom by introducing the Czech Republic, Czech culture, and various opportunities to the British public and professionals to support mutual collaboration and exchange. Their programs covers the arts: film, theater, music, visual art, design and literature and other disciplines with events organized in leading venues across the United Kingdom.
- Czech cinema from Prague LifeCzech film history essentially begins with the "Czech New Wave" of the 1960s. The fundamental filmmakers of the era to know are Milos Forman, Jiri Menzel, Vera Chytilova, Jaromir Jires and Ivan Passer, all of whom made their debuts in or around 1963. ...
- Czech films from Wikipedia
The list of Czech films is a list of films made in the Czech lands from 1898 to the present. - Lions of Czech films from the Avalon TheatreA series of Czech films from the Avalon Theatre in Washington, DC.
